Pankaj Mishra

Bestselling authors like Ayaan Hirsi Ali may be the “new heroes”, as the writer Peter Beinart puts it, of the Republican party’s crusade against Muslims. But “professional” former Muslims have long provided respectable cover for the bigotry and, more often, plain ignorance of mainstream western commentators on Islam…Most of these ex-Muslim “dissidents” lucratively raging against Islam in the west wouldn’t be able to flourish without the imprimatur of influential institutions and individuals in the US and Europe.

Most of what “professional” ex-Muslim “dissidents” lucratively raging against Islam? It’s not lucrative for all ex-Muslim dissidents, after all – in fact it’s not lucrative for any of them except possibly Hirsi Ali, and she has heavy expenses because of the death threats. And for most of them it’s unpaid work, and thankless besides. Sara Mohammed doesn’t find it very “lucrative,” I can tell you. Few ex-Muslim dissidents find it all that lucrative to defend women’s rights and gay rights and human rights, and they find it not all that easy or popular, either, in a world where Pankaj Mishras are always ready to sneer and throw mud.

Certainly, the story of Hirsi Ali’s life attests powerfully to the degradations suffered by many women in patriarchal cultures. There is no question that she should feel free to say that Muslims are programmed to kill infidels and mutilate female bodies, however much these opinions may offend some people. There is little reason, however, for most of her opinions to claim serious intellectual attention.

Yet the mildest criticism of Hirsi Ali’s naivety triggers a tsunami of vitriol from her army of prominent supporters. In recent months Clive James as well as Melanie Phillips have rebuked Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash for not joining the chorus of praise for Hirsi Ali, a defender of the western Enlightenment, and for being “soft” on apparently closeted jihadists like the Muslim academic Tariq Ramadan.

No. Not for not joining the chorus of praise for Hirsi Ali; not at all; for calling her “an Enlightenment fundamentalist” and other patronizing clueless nonsense.

Thus the writer Paul Berman, a self-described “laptop general” who first stalked Ramadan and hounded Buruma and Garton Ash in the New Republic – once the principal periodical of liberal America – and then expanded his 28,000-word indictment into a much-reviewed book…

And so on and so on, as if there were something deeply sinister about Paul Berman’s analysis – not “stalking” – of Ramadan, or as if it were obviously illiberal of the New Republic to publish it, or as if he had no business writing a book on the subject, or as if it should have gone unreviewed. It’s ugly, nasty, bullying, innuendo-laden stuff.

Why do people always blame our peaceful religion DEATHTOINFIDELS for the actions of a corrupt few FREEDOMFIGHTERS sadly-misguided zealots who practice a TRUE debased and false form of our illustrious faith? Any IGNORANT HEATHENS Westerners who do not understand this and who sadly engage in Islamophobia need only meet THEIRDEATHSBYTHESWORD a few moderate Muslims and they will see how badly mistaken they were about our GOALOFAWORLDWIDECALIPHATE desire to leave lives of peaceful co-existence. Thank you ALLAHAKBAR for listening.

What a peculiarly nasty person this Pankaj Mishra turns out to be. In the act of complaining about alarmist and phobic rhetoric he indulges in it himself, and instead of acknowledging the legitimate concerns of those who, criticising Islam, must pay for protection against the threat of murder by fanatical Muslims, criticises them for having little of intellectual significance to say. And yet he, himself, says nothing of intellectual interest, let alone significance.

But then, in the midst of this rather sad little temper tantrum, in which he verbally attacks both individuals and the West in general, he accuses Berman of hounding Ramadan and stalking Garton Ash and Buruma, when what Berman does is, with considerable subtlety, to raise pointed questions about their loyalties and the reasons for them. Berman may of course be wrong, but he can scarcely be accused of “hounding” and “stalking” anyone. I wonder why it is that — almost overnight — people have begun using martial imagery to characterise reasonable criticism? Responses to Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris, and other Gnu Atheists have made similar accusations. Indeed, Quinn O’Neill recently used the word vitriol in reference to them, as though they had thrown acid into little girls’ faces. A remarkable rhetorical trend, well exemplified in this rather strident piece from Pankaj Mishra.

Already 3 comments, and already Kirth Gersen rushes to confuse all Islam with violent Islamism. Right. Ali’s employment by a conservative think-tank who see the world in terms of a clash “of civilizations” has no negative effects at all, oh nooo…

Irene, I don’t know what effect Hirsi Ali’s employment by a conservative think tank has on the relation between Islam and the West, but I think it is only fair to point out that Hirsi Ali herself saw matters as a pretty stark choice between Islam and Enlightenment before she ever became associated with the American Enterprise Institute. It is also telling, I think, that no liberal think tank was prepared to give her refuge, and that she was then, and is now, under threat from Muslim fanatics.

She is not the only one. In fact, there is a significant number of ex-Muslims who live perpetually under protection, as well as a number of Western critics of Islam. There is not, that I know, a significant outcry from the Muslim world about this being an unacceptable situation, nor do I know of many who are protesting the fact that Islam is in fact very often in tension with the values of Western enlightenment. This was made very clear when the OIC issued its declaration of human rights under Islam, which is a denial of practically every right that is considered vital to those who stand within the Western tradition.

There is a small number of Muslims who want to see Islam forswear jihad and Shar’ia, among them men like Bassam Tibi, in Germany, or Irshad Manji in the States, but it scarcely amounts to a movement in Islam. I do not think it likely that Islam will accept this rereading of its foundational texts any more than I expect evangelical Christians to accept the liberal Anglican understanding of Christianity.

To my knowledge the jury is still out on this one, namely, whether Islam and Enlightenment values are compatible at all. Hirsi Ali doesn’t think so, and I have to say that her point of view seems to me quite compelling. It is surely no accident that practically every Muslim majority country in the world, with the exception, perhaps, of Turkey — and even there there are troubling signs that the secular structure of the country may be beginning to founder — is unstable, and apparently unable to sustain democratic institutions. Kirth Gersen’s conflation of Islam and Islamism may be a stretch too far, but it’s not, in my opinion, a very big stretch. I would dearly like to see myself proved wrong, but so far the evidence is pathetically thin.

Somehow I can’t get my mind around the idea of Ayan Hirsi Ali as a Republican Party hero.

There are reasons to worry about anti-Muslim violence, but that danger is coming from right wing nativists who are being egged on by Fox News and the “Obama is a Muslim” nutbags, not by ex-Muslims who quite properly think that Islam needs to experience an Enlightenment. Really, it shouldn’t be hard to separate these folks out.

If liberals did not make themselves opponents of democracy and secularism in Islamic countries then Ali and others of her persuasion would not need to seek shelter and support with the conservatives, an understandable move but one which I think will not end well.

One does not have to be much of an Enlightenment ‘hero’ to be legitimately concerned about what <a href=”http://www.socialcohesion.co.uk/files/1231525079_1.pdf”>page 45</a> represents in numbers of otherwise well-educated intelligent young people willing to endorse killing strictly for religious reasons. How to account for this attitude to kill for religious reasons when the affluent subjects who do so are born and raised in a secular democracy acculturated to western enlightenment values?

That Pankaj Mishra and his ilk of vitriolic apologists so willingly forget and intentionally ignore these facts speaks volumes about their intellectual integrity when it comes to vilifying those who dare criticize the islamic roots from which such murderous justifications spring.

What allows this shit to float is that so many Americans and Europeans really are pig ignorant about Islam, and that so many religious conservatives really do demonize Muslims simply because they aren’t Christian. This leads too many on the left to conclude that “Islamophobia” ranks among the sins of the right, and that any calls to accountability are prejudiced. And it’s a damned shame, because

There is no question that she should feel free to say that Muslims are programmed to kill infidels and mutilate female bodies

And yet another example of why religious reporting seems to be a hive of scum, villainy and the sort of cowardly asshole who thinks a religion that kills apostates, is simply being targetted by those apostates for money.

Anyway, in other news…

Stephen Hawking has come out and said God is superflous, and gravity explains the universe without the need for one.

Kind of a big suck it to those who were into quote mining him saying “If we discover a complete theory, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we should know the mind of God” as evidence of his theism.

Bruce, I take it from #14 that we could do a helluva lot worse than all kneel down and worship the great god Gravity.

And there’s more. Gravity will help us do it; ie the descending part in the kneeling. Gravity is tangible and detectable. Gravity does many good works every day, like generating hydroelectricity, keeping us all from floating off into space, and making sure beer stays put in its glass,

But what explains gravity? Seriously, one can’t invoke the laws of physics to explain the existence of the universe, at least not without explaining where those laws themselves come from. It’s like saying that chickens exist because there are eggs.

Hirsi Ali is often seen as anti muslim, but she doesn’t speak only about Islam. She argues that Christianity is incompatible with democracy as well, so are all ideologies with a divine, perfect, central authority. It’s just western goverments took all the public power away from the churches a couple of centuries ago through the separation of church and state.

@ Irene, you’ll note that I specifically said “These guys…” not “all Muslims.” So you might examine your own conflation of “people criticizing Mishra et al.” with “people who assume all Muslims are terrorists.” In short, it appears that, like so many others, you’re so quick to play the “Islamophobia” card that your thinking short-circuits whenever any perceived slight against any poor, oppressed Muslim appears.

Already 3 comments, and already Kirth Gersen rushes to confuse all Islam with violent Islamism. Right. Ali’s employment by a conservative think-tank who see the world in terms of a clash “of civilizations” has no negative effects at all, oh nooo…

Thing is, Hirsi Ali was booted out of the left-wing dutch political party she was once a member of the moment she began criticising islam’s virulent misogyny and homophobia.

Hirsai Ali represents the utter negation of what most of The Left now represent; anti-americanism, anti-enlightenment, and anti-western sentiments.

Reformist and/or ex-Muslims here in Canada have undergone the same ostracisation and marginalisation by Canadian leftists. And like Hirsi Ali, and because they got “uppity” and began to speak for themsewlves, they TOO have had their fair share of death-threats.

Reformist Muslims in French Canada, most of whom fled the islamist violence of N. Africa in the 90s, have been sidelined and marginalised by French Candian leftists as well.

There is a whole pattern to this. A Muslim need only express a limited and guarded admiration for enlightenment values, democracy and free-speech, and The Left will imediately denounce them as “enlightenment fundamentalists”, or some such.

UNnortunately, that section of The Left that has so foolishly made radical islamofascists its newest constituency will have to deal with growing numbers of reformist Muslims who’ve chosen to embrace enlightnement values, democracy and modernity.

The mere fact that most reformist muslims, like Hirsi Ali, aren’t white is a particularly vexing problem, one that threatens to expose The ( faux) Left’s (now largely) faux anti-racist “credentials”

They can’t accuse Hirsi Ali of misogyny because she’s a women, and they certainly can’t accuse her of being racist because she’s black, and so they’re reduced to portraying her as an “enlightenment fundamentalist”

And it’s a ridiculous term that makes about as much sense as “good-will fundamentalist” or “happiness fundamentalist”

What allows this shit to float is that so many Americans and Europeans really are pig ignorant about Islam, and that so many religious conservatives really do demonize Muslims simply because they aren’t Christian. This leads too many on the left to conclude that “Islamophobia” ranks among the sins of the right, and that any calls to accountability are prejudiced. And it’s a damned shame, because

There is no question that she should feel free to say that Muslims are programmed to kill infidels and mutilate female bodies

that is truly ugly.

QFT. I’m sure I’m not the only one who can’t stop thinking about all the libs who jumped on the Leninist communism bandwagon, even the Maoist Cultural Revolution, only to later recant as “more became known.” Or, for that matter, the few who supported the Iraq war on the basis of all the crap coming from the neo-cons…(Friedman, the NYT…). Plus ça change…

All those immediately jettisoning Hirsi Ali because she got a position at the AEI are not listening to her. She consistently calls herself a feminist, pro-choice, liberal. Apparently, the AEI is not threatened enough by that to shun her, unlike the liberal think tanks that found her insufficiently PC. Yes, of course, the AEI has canny motives in giving her a position…so what?

Ernie: “if liberals did not make themselves opponents of democracy … (etc)”.

Please elaborate.

I will, just a little. The left, for the most part, has taken the position that criticism of Islamic jihadism is “Islamophobia”. An unfortunate consequence of this is that those Muslims who want Western assistance to democratize and secularize their countries are seen as inauthentic. Multiculturalist condescension feeds into this, in that only stereotypical Muslims (and terrorists, of course) can speak authoritatively for their culture. But a big factor is that many on the left orient themselves according to U.S. foreign policy. It’s far more important to oppose American military efforts than it is fight real fascists, unless the fascists happen to be on the same side as the American. Ex-Muslims and Muslim reformers in the West find themselves in the odd position of being rejected by the very people they thought would be their natural allies. So I’m agreeing with the thesis put forward by Hitchens, Cohen, Berman and others that the left has betrayed its former principles.

It’s possible (even likely) that liberal support for the Iraq war was sincerely motivated by the desire to remove a cruel dictator and liberate the vast majority of Iraqis (Kurds, Shia especially) whom we had encouraged to rise up against Saddam. I also think that the official justification of disarming the regime was legitimate. I’ll go out on a limb and say that given these factors, democratizing Iraq was also a worthy goal, on the principle that war against tyrants justifies such actions. This was not a case of cheering on the Red Guards during the Mao era, in fact it was the opposite of that. For once a sizable portion of the left was willing to suppress their Vietnam-era reflexes and remember what they used to stand for. The people who most resemble the leftist third world-ers of the ’60s and ’70s are the third world-ers of today. They sentimentalize Islamists just like they used to sentimentalize the Red Guard and the Viet Cong.

ernie, the US invaded Iraq because Iraq had everything to do with 9/11. Except it had nothing to do with it.

No wait, it was because of weapons of mass destruction. The ones the UN proved nonexistent.

Or was it because Saddam was a mean dictator? As mean as Pahlavi, you know that guy the US put in charge of Iran in the 50s, destroying their young democracy in the process. Hey, didn’t the US did the exact same thing in Guatemala with Castillo Armas? What about Fulgencio Batista? Of course, they were all military dictators but in a nicer way because they were best friends forever with the United States. Just a second–didn’t the US support Saddam against Iran in the 80s? Wasn’t Saddam a mean dictator at the time?

Oh no, this war was all about iraqi human rights and liberation. The best way to protect human rights in Iraq is deploying your big fat army and killing a hundred thousand iraqi civilians. Well, in a way, I’d say a corpse is quite liberated, isn’t it? Free from the little worries of everyday living people.

Let’s be clear. We first world nations care very little about democracy in other countries. We only care about our own economic interests. The war in Iraq was because of oil and all the changing official justifications were and are plain lies. And I think that’s a fair reason for the left-or for anyone-to oppose it.

Gosh, I sincerely can’t believe there are people who still think this criminal war was somehow justifiable.

It wasn’t oil – that could have been had quite easily on the sly, as various oilgate scandals showed. It wasn’t about human rights. Saudi Arabia has the death penalty for apostates, and has a horrific take on women’s rights. It is a US ally.

It wasn’t WMDs, the UN had found them nonexistant. It wasn’t about 9/11, Saddam was evil, but he and Osama hated each other. It wasn’t the plight of the Kurds, part of the US’s negotiations with Turkey involved avoiding the formation of a Kurdish state.

It wasn’t Israel, Iraq was largely neutered as a threat both by sanctions, but more importantly by its strained relations with the rest of the Islamic world. It is kind of what happens when you have a history of going to war with them. If there was to be a war for Israel, Iran would come long before Iraq.

There was no real point to the whole thing, it was simply taking the eye off the ball that mattered – Afghanistan. The sheer insanity of willingly engaging in two wars at the same time, all by itself demonstrates how stupid America’s political establishment is.

And that is without even getting into the lack of post-war planning, the massive frauds, the outsourcing of core military functions (Such as catering for example), the war not even appearing on the budget for years, or the various other elements of insanity that demonstrates just how bad an idea the war was.

The far wiser course would have been to take it one war at a time – and only engaging in that one war when all other options have been exhausted.

Ernie, you are completely right that whatever liberal support there was for Iraq was totally differently motivated from the ‘com symps” of the cold war era. I realized as much while typing but didn’t feel wordy enough to elaborate. And I agree that people like Friedman apparently did talk themselves into Iraq support on the bases you cite. The end result, though, is that here we are AGAIN hearing libs admit they were wrong when it’s entirely too late for that…And, I would posit, when there was certainly enough information available beforehand to come down on the anti-war side. I’ll never forgive the NYT, whose support I consider a deal-changer for whipping up enough overall US support for W to pursue his “pre-emptive” war.

Jose, thanks. You’ve stated my views for me. I am also one of those who didn’t find the FIRST Iraq invasion justifiable. At least George HW stuck to his guns (ha!) & pulled out after meeting his objective. Nor do I see what we’re accomplishing in Afghanistan.

Ernie, I do agree with your analysis in #22, though as a pacifist I support other than military solutions whenever possible, which I think is just about always…

“If liberals did not make themselves opponents of democracy and secularism in Islamic countries [do liberals do that?] then Ali and others of her persuasion would not need to seek shelter and support with the conservatives, an understandable move but one which I think will not end well.” I think you are talking there about part of the western Left: the part taken to task repeatedly by Nick Cohen.

But the Left in general is ambiguous about liberalism. Some of them dismiss it as ‘merely bourgeois’ and find reasons to support (they think conditionally and temporarily) the most despotic anti-American regimes. Their own anti-Americanism trumps whatever liberalism they possess, and there they dig their own political graves. Liberalism is central to any political project worth having.

Jose at #24: Tough call. Saddam Hussein was one of the great monsters of all human history. So when he gets into a fight with GW Bush, who does one support? I took my own cue from the Iraqi refugee community here in Australia, who were delighted at the time at the peril that Hussein and his henchmen were in. So I supported Bush, Blair and John Howard on the war, and Howard on little else domestically.

The problem is the counterfactual. We have no idea how the last 7 years would have played out if Iraq had not been invaded, and no way of finding out. There are conceivable scenarios which would have been much better all round, and others which could have been a helluva lot worse. Norman Geras has an interesting take on this at the link below.